UK House building at 7 year peak..

New house building figures from the National House-Building Council indicate that new home registrations are at their highest level since 2007.

The figures for July to September this year show that new home registrations are up eight per cent compared to the same period last year.

In total, 36,343 new homes were registered with NHBC between July and September.

“We are very encouraged to see that house building is again beginning to show signs of accelerated growth across the UK,” said NHBC’s Chief Executive Mike Quinton. “Following the dramatic growth in 2013, we saw a period of consolidation in the first half of this year, but our latest data would suggest that the pace of growth is picking up again.

“Our figures show that the sharp housing upturn we have seen over the last couple of years is a genuine broad-based recovery across the whole of the country, with pockets of strong growth in the North East, Yorkshire & Humberside and West Midlands. It is now increasingly apparent that housing growth is no longer London and South-East-centric, with these regions beginning to show signs of cooling.

However, he added that the UK still has a chronic shortage of new homes and that there is an urgent need to build more high quality and affordable properties.

A separate report from the British Bankers’ Association shows that mortgage approvals for house purchases fell nearly ten per cent year-on-year in September.

“While the market may be taking a breath, now is a very good time indeed to get a mortgage,” said Mark Harris, chief executive of mortgage broker SPF Private Clients. “The mortgage market review slowed applications down and lenders are playing catch-up before the end of the year.”

Source: The Independent